Nothing particularly out of the ordinary here.
But an interesting historic conviction for the first applicant, and not one many licensing authorities will deal with, I'd guess, at least not on a regular basis.
And not one that the courts will deal with very often either, I'd guess, but, you know...
Taxi driver convicted of speeding granted new licencehttps://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/polit ... ce-8288314Three private hire driver applications were approved this week, despite one applicant being previously convicted for speeding.
Members of the licensing panel at Fareham Borough Council considered each case individually and assessed whether applicants met the legal requirement of being a “fit and proper person”.
In the first case, an applicant referred to as ‘Mr A’ was granted a licence despite a historic conviction for contempt of court in 2017.
The panel heard the offence related to his failure to attend court as a witness in unrelated proceedings.
After hearing from the applicant, the panel was satisfied that the incident was isolated and dated, with no further offending.
It was also noted Mr A had since been granted licences by two other authorities without complaint, and his application was approved.
The second case involved ‘Mr K’, who had six penalty points on his DVLA licence for driving without appropriate insurance in 2023.
The panel was told the offence happened shortly after he arrived in the UK while working as a delivery driver, and he was unaware that business insurance was required.
Although council policy states that insurance offences typically require seven years before a licence is granted, members determined there were “exceptional circumstances”.
They accepted the offence was a result of a lack of correct cover rather than no insurance at all.
He has had no issues since, and his application for a licence in Fareham was approved.
The final application from ‘Mr D’ was also granted by panel members, despite him having two speeding offences dating back to 2023 and 2025.
Members raised concerns that he had failed to disclose the offences to another licensing authority.
The minutes of the reading said: “It was noted that Mr D failed to disclose these to Reading Borough Council, with whom he was already licensed.
“In this regard, the panel were concerned about the failure to disclose but accepted Mr D’s explanation.”
The explanation was that he “was not actively working at the time”, the meeting heard, and that the matter had been dealt with through penalty points and a driver improvement course.
The panel concluded that all three applicants met the required standard and approved each licence.
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